Everything which exists is particular

There is quite a chance that if there is a God he will make something of the finitude and complexity of a universe.

It is very unlikely that a universe would exist uncaused, but rather more likely that God would exist uncaused. The existence of the universe…can be made comprehensible if we suppose that it is brought about by God. Swinburne — More recently, Michael Almeida constructed a new version of the argument based on modal realism. In short, in contrast to the first half of the last century, contemporary philosophers contribute increasingly detailed, complex, and sophisticated arguments on both sides of the debate.

Philosophers employ diverse classifications of the cosmological arguments. Swinburne distinguishes inductive from deductive versions. Craig distinguishes three types of deductive cosmological arguments in terms of their approach to an infinite regress of causes.

The first, advocated by Aquinas, is based on the impossibility of an essentially ordered infinite regress. The third, espoused by Leibniz and Clarke, is overtly founded on the Principle of Sufficient Reason Craig — Craig notes that the distinction between these types of arguments is important because the objections raised against one version may be irrelevant to other versions.

Another way of distinguishing between versions of the argument is in terms of the relevance of time to the argument. The relationship between cause and effect is treated as real but not temporal, so that the first cause is not a first cause in time but a sustaining cause Siniscalchi It is said that philosophy begins in wonder.

These origination questions related to the puzzle of existence that, in its metaphysical dimensions, is the subject of our concern. First, why is there anything at all? Why is there something, no matter what it is, even if different or even radically different from what currently exists? This question becomes clearer when put in contrastive form, Why is there something rather than nothing? We can ask this question even in the absence of contingent beings, though in this context it is likely to prove unanswerable.

For example, if God or the universe is logically or absolutely necessary, something would not only exist but would have to exist even if nothing else existed. Probably no reason can be given for why logically or absolutely necessary things exist.

Some doubt whether we can ask this question because there being nothing is not an option. What would nothing be? He analogizes nothing with the notion of empty space, in terms of which, he thinks, we can conceptualize nothing. He reasons that we cannot achieve a notion of empty space simply by removing its contents one at a time, for space the void would still exist.

However, we need not analogize nothing in terms of empty space, and even if we do, we surely can conceive of removing space. If we think of space as a particular type of relation between objects, the removal of all objects everything would leave nothing, including relations.

We can easily be misled by the language of there being nothing at all, leading to the notion that nothing has being or existence. Heil suggests that nothing might be a precursor to the Big Bang.

However, this too is a misconception—though one widely held by those who think that the universe arose out of nothing, e. Rutten , 13—15 develops an a priori reductio ad absurdum argument for the impossibility of there being nothing. Suppose nothing exists. If nothing exists, then no actual states of affairs exist, and if no actual states of affairs exist, no merely possible states of affairs exist, since there is nothing to actualize or bring them about.

Hence, there are no possible states of affairs, since to be possible, something must either be actual or merely possible. However, one can conceive of a possible world with at least one actual and hence possible state of affairs S , for example, a world with one atom. But if S is possible, then by S5, necessarily, S is possible, that is, S is possible in all possible worlds.

However, this contradicts the original conclusion that if total nothingness is metaphysically possible, there are no possible states of affairs in that possible world.

Hence, the reductio against the original thesis that nothingness can exist. One might counter this reductio by contending that the argument trades on a confusion between metaphysical necessity, as evidenced by appeal to an Aristotelian principle regarding the relationship between actuality and possibility, with logical necessity, which in invoking S5 addresses logical possibility across possible worlds for this distinction, see Burgess , Second, why are there these particular contingent beings?

The starting point here is the existence of particular things, and the question posed asks for an explanation for there being these particular things. If we are looking for a causal explanation and accept a full explanation in terms of contemporary or immediately prior causal conditions and the relevant natural laws that together necessitate the effect , the answer emerges from an analysis of the relevant immediate causal conditions present in each case.

Hume argues that an explanation in terms of immediately conjoined factors is satisfactory. Heil suggests that the answer depends on how one understands the Big Bang If it was spontaneous, the question has no answer.

If not spontaneous, there might be an answer. Theists broaden the explanatory search to include final causes or intentions appropriate to a personal cause. God also acts from his intentions Swinburne —45; 83—84 , so that God could reveal his purposes for his act of creating Richard Swinburne, The Evolution of the Soul : Third, why do things continue to exist?

This is the question that Thomas Aquinas posed. Aquinas was interested not in a beginning cause but in a sustaining cause, for he believed that the universe could be eternal—although he believed on the basis of revelation that it was not eternal. He constructed his cosmological arguments around the question of what sustains things in the universe in their existence. Fourth, if the universe has a beginning, what is the cause of that beginning?

Many, however, deny the antecedent in the conditional, that the universe had a beginning. Fifth and fundamentally, why are there contingent beings? This may be asked about particular finite beings and, if the universe is contingent, the universe. Several responses have been given. One is that particular things exist because of their causes, and their causes because of their causes, and so on. Had those causes not existed, the effect in question would not exist.

If one speaks about the universe, then either it exists because it is caused e. This is the question that traditional cosmological arguments address. Two things should be obvious from this discussion. First, questions about existence are more nuanced than usually addressed Heil It is important to be more precise about what one is asking when one asks this broader metaphysical question about why there is something rather than nothing.

Second, the cosmological argument lies at the heart of attempts to answer the questions, and to this we now turn. Thomas Aquinas held that among the things whose existence needs explanation are contingent beings that depend for their existence upon other beings. The response of defenders of the cosmological argument is that what is contingent exists because of some action of a necessary being.

As an a posteriori argument, the cosmological argument begins with a fact known by experience, namely, that something contingent exists. We might sketch out a version of the argument as follows. In the argument, steps 1—7 establish the existence of a necessary or non-contingent being; steps 8—9 attempt in some way to identify it. Over the centuries philosophers have suggested various instantiations for the contingent being noted in premise 1.

In his Summa Theologica I,q. Whereas the contingency of particular existents is generally undisputed, not the least because of our mortality, the contingency of the universe deserves serious defense see section 4. Premise 2 invokes a moderate version of the Principle of Causation, according to which there must be a sufficient cause for any contingent being or event, or of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, according to which there must be a fully adequate explanation for any contingent being or event.

Applied here, the Principles of Causation or of Sufficient Reason lead to the contention that if something is contingent, there must be a sufficient cause of its existence or a fully adequate reason or explanation why it exists rather than not exists. The point of premise 3 is simply that something cannot cause or explain its own existence, for this would require it to already exist in a logical if not in a temporal sense.

Premise 4 is true by virtue of the Principle of Excluded Middle: what explains the existence of the contingent being either are solely other contingent beings or include a non-contingent necessary being. Conclusions 6 and 7 follow validly from the respective premises. The truth of 5 depends upon the requirements for an adequate explanation.

Using the Principle of Sufficient Reason PSR , what is required here is an account in terms of sufficient conditions that provides an adequate explanation why the cause had the effect it did, or alternatively, why this particular effect and not another arose.

Swinburne 75—79 , and Alexander Pruss 16—18 after him, note diverse kinds of explanations. In a full explanation the causal factors—in scientific causation, contemporary or immediately precedent causal conditions and natural laws; in personal causation, persons and their intentions— are sufficient for the occurrence of an event.

It does not allow a puzzling aspect of the explanandum to disappear: anything puzzling in the explanandum is either also found in the explanans or else explained by the explanans. Pruss In a complete explanation, every aspect of the explanandum and explanans at the time of the occurrence is accounted for; nothing puzzling remains.

Pruss and Swinburne argue that the kind of explanation required by the PSR is a complete explanation. Quinn argues that an adequate explanation need not require a complete explanation —85 ; a partial explanation might do just as well, depending on the context. Among these adequate explanations of why this actual world obtains rather than another possible world including one with no contingent beings is that the universe is an inexplicable brute fact and that God strongly actualized the world although not everything in it.

He refuses to take sides on the debate between explanations, except to say that science cannot provide an adequate explanation if the explanatory chain is infinite, for the chain of causes is itself contingent or it ends in an initial contingency not scientifically accountable. However, as we will question below, is the brute fact of the universe any more unacceptable as a complete explanation than the brute fact of a necessary being?

One worry with understanding the PSR in this way is that it may lead to a deterministic account that not only may bode ill for the success of the argument but on a libertarian account may be incompatible with the contention that God created freely. Pruss, however, envisions no such difficulty, for giving reasons neither makes the event deterministic nor removes freedom. What gives sufficiency to explanation is that mystery is taken away, for example, through the citing of relevant reasons, not that probability is increased Pruss , One might freely consider an option to be the best without being necessitated to choose it.

The debate hinges on how one understands how reasons function in human agency. Finally, some disputedly, see below argue that explanations must be either natural impersonal or non-natural personal. Since the argument proceeds independent of temporal considerations, the argument does not necessarily propose a first cause in time, but allows for a first or primary sustaining cause of the universe.

Whether 8 and 9 are an intrinsic part of the cosmological argument is debated. Kant argued that the argument had two parts, the first establishing the existence of an absolutely necessary being; the second part, identifying this being as the most real being , B— Without the second part, the concept of a necessary being was empty.

The issue achieves significance when the question arises whether the argument has religious significance, that is, whether necessary being to which the argument concludes is God. Some contend that from the concept of a necessary being flow properties appropriate to a divine being Siniscalchi , Likewise, the connection between the essential properties must be necessary.

Hence, the universe cannot be the necessary being since it is mereologically complex. Similarly, the myriad elementary particles cannot be necessary beings either, for their distinguishing distributions are externally caused and hence contingent.

Rather, he contends that a more viable account of the necessary being is as a purposive agent with desires, intentions, and beliefs, whose activity is guided but not determined by its goals, a view consistent with identifying the necessary being as God. Critics have objected to key premises in the argument. We will consider the most important objections and responses.

Interpreting the contingent being in premise 1 as the universe, Bertrand Russell denies that the universe needs an explanation premise 2 ; it just is.

Russell, following Hume , contends that since we derive the concept of cause from our observation of particular things, we cannot ask about the cause of something like the universe that we cannot experience.

This view was reiterated by Hawking Every physical object is unique under some description,… yet all objects within the universe are characterized by certain properties, which are common to more than one object. We do not need to experience every possible referent of the class of contingent things to be able to conclude that a contingent thing needs a cause.

Morriston a: responds that although it is true that we do not need to experience every instance to derive a general principle, the universe is a very different thing from what we experientially reference when we say that things cannot come into existence without a cause. Defenders of the argument respond that there is a key similarity between the cosmos and its content, namely, both are contingent.

However, why should we think that the cosmos is contingent? Defenders of the view contend that if the components of the universe are contingent, the universe itself is contingent. Russell replies that the move from the contingency of the components of the universe to the contingency of the universe commits the Fallacy of Composition, which mistakenly concludes that since the parts have a certain property, the whole likewise has that property.

Hence, whereas we legitimately can ask for the cause of particular things, to require a cause of the universe based on the contingency of its parts is mistaken. Russell correctly notes that arguments of the part-whole type can commit the Fallacy of Composition. For example, the argument that since all the bricks in the wall are small, the wall is small, is fallacious. Yet it is an informal fallacy of content, not a formal fallacy.

Sometimes the totality has the same quality as the parts because of the nature of the parts invoked—the wall is brick composed of baked clay because it is built of bricks composed of baked clay. If all the contingent things in the universe, including matter and energy, ceased to exist simultaneously, the universe itself, as the totality of these things, would cease to exist.

However, if the universe can cease to exist, it is contingent and requires an explanation for its existence Reichenbach chap. This argument for the contingency of the universe from its component, contingent parts coalesces these two understandings in the cosmological argument.

William Rowe —67 argues that what looks like a similar argument in Samuel Clarke for the contingency of the universe is fallacious, for even if every contingent being were to fail to exist in some possible world, it may be the case that there is no possible world that lacks a contingent being on Aquinas, see Plantinga 5—6; Kenny 56— That is, although no being would exist in every possible world, every possible world could possess at least one contingent being.

In such a case, although each being is contingent, something must exist. Rowe gives the example of a horse race. We know that although no horse in a given horse race necessarily will be the winner, it is, nevertheless, necessary that some horse in the race will be the winner.

So why should we think that something must exist, even if it is contingent? Rowe does not say why, but one argument given in defense of this thesis is that the existence of one contingent being may be necessary for the nonexistence of some other contingent being. That is, Aquinas does not hold that over time there would be nothing, but that in the per se ordering of causes, if every contingent thing in that order did not exist, there would be nothing. Rowe develops a different argument to support the thesis that the universe must be contingent.

He argues that it is necessary that if God exists, then it is possible that no dependent beings exist. Since it is possible that God exists, it is possible that it is possible that no dependent beings exist. Hence, it is possible that there are no dependent beings; that is, that the universe is contingent. Rowe takes the conditional as necessarily true in virtue of the classical concept of God, according to which God is free to decide whether or not to create dependent beings.

To avoid any hint of the Fallacy of Composition and to avoid its complications, Koons —99 formulates the argument for the contingency of the universe as a mereological argument.

If something is contingent, it contains a contingent part. The whole and part overlap and, by virtue of overlapping, have a common part. Since the part in virtue of which they overlap is wholly contingent, the whole likewise must be contingent. If theists are willing to accept the existence of God as the necessary being as a brute fact, why cannot nontheists accept the existence of the universe as a brute fact, as a necessary being?

Bede Rundle, for example, argues that what has necessary existence is causally independent. This accords with the Principle of Conservation of Mass-Energy, according to which matter and energy are never lost but rather transmute into each other. On this reading, there is not one but there are many necessary beings, all internal to the universe.

Interestingly enough, this approach was anticipated by Aquinas in his third way in his Summa Theologica I,q. Once Aquinas concludes that necessary beings exist, he then goes on to ask whether these beings have their existence from themselves or from another.

If from another, then we have an unsatisfactory infinite regress of explanations. Hence, there must be something whose necessity is uncaused. As Kenny points out, Aquinas understands this necessity in terms of being unable to cease to exist Kenny A second significant problem concerns what follows from the existence of necessary beings.

Everything in the universe would be necessary, which is a disquieting position. We will return to the question of the contingency of the universe below. Whereas Russell argued that the universe just is, David Hume held that when the parts are explained the whole is explained. But the whole , you say, wants a cause. I answer that the uniting of these parts into a whole…is performed merely by an arbitrary act of the mind, and has no influence on the nature of things.

Did I show you the particular causes of each individual in a collection of twenty particles of matter, I should think it very unreasonable should you afterwards ask me what was the cause of the whole twenty.

This is sufficiently explained in explaining the parts. Hume part 9. Hume contends that uniting the parts or individual constituents into a whole is a mental act. In reality, all that exist are individual, causally-related events, not whole sets of events.

When we have provided an account of each of these individual, causally-related events we have explained the whole. Rowe objects to what he terms the Hume-Edwards principle—that by explaining the parts we have explained the whole:.

When the existence of each member of a collection is explained by reference to some other member of that very same collection , then it does not follow that the collection itself has an explanation. For it is one thing for there to be an explanation of the existence of each dependent being and quite another thing for there to be an explanation of why there are dependent beings at all.

Rowe An explanation of the parts may provide a partial but not a complete explanation. The explanation in terms of parts may fail to explain why these parts exist rather than others, why they exist rather than not, or why the parts are arranged as they are. Each member or part will be explained either in terms of itself or in terms of something else that is contingent. The former would make them necessary, not contingent, beings. If they are explained in terms of something else, they still remain unaccounted for, since the explanation would invoke either an infinite regress of causes or a circular explanation.

However, explaining why something exists rather than something else or than nothing and why it is as it is gives additional explanatory power in explaining why a universe exists at all.

Gale —58 concludes that if we are to explain the parts of the universe and their particular concatenation, we must appeal to something other than those parts. Critics of the cosmological argument contend that the Causal Principle or, where applicable, the broader Principle of Sufficient Reason PSR that underlies versions of the argument, is suspect. As Hume argued, there is no reason for thinking that the Causal Principle is true a priori , for we can conceive of events occurring without conceiving of their being caused, and what is conceivable is possible in reality IV.

Neither can an argument for the application of the Causal Principle to the universe be drawn from inductive experience. Even if the Causal Principle applies to events in the world, we cannot extrapolate from the way the world works to the world as a whole Mackie 85; Kant B Several replies are in order. For one thing, whose conceivability is being appealed to here? For another, someone who fails to understand a necessarily true proposition might conceive of it being false, but from this it does not follow that it possibly is false.

A person might think wrongly that pi is a determinate number, but it does not follow that it is so. In the phenomenology of conceivability, what is really conceivable is difficult if not impossible to differentiate from what some might think is conceivable. And even if something is conceivable, say in a logical sense, it does not follow that it is metaphysically or factually possible.

One might conceive that, since heads can be distinguished from tails on a coin, they can actually be separated, but metaphysically such is impossible. What is distinguishable is not necessarily separable. Hume, it seems, confuses epistemic with ontological conditions. Hence, the argument based on conceivability is suspect Reichenbach 57— Second, some suggest a pragmatic-type argument to show that the Causal and Sufficient Reason principles are true, namely that the principles are necessary to make the universe intelligible.

Without such principles, Pruss argues, science itself would be undercut. The best explanation of the success of science and other such rational endeavors is that the principles are really indicative of how reality operates.. Critics reply that the principles then only have methodological or practical and not ontological justification.

As John Mackie argues, we have no right to assume that the universe complies with our intellectual preferences for causal order. We can simply work with brute facts; beginning with them, science would work just as well.

These persons might not know it to be self-evidently true, but they do understand it to be true. This is consistent with other persons denying it is self-evident, for those who deny it might misunderstand the principle in various ways. In that case, the sub-proposition Ronald McDonald exists is true and so its negation false.

The problem of true singular negative existentials does not rest on the supposition that they involve ascribing the property of nonexistence. One is the semantic argument. See [Kripke ]. But that seems implausible. Surely we must collect empirical data to determine its truth. One who wonders whether someone, say, Warren Buffett, is wealthier than Bill Gates does not display irrationality or semantic ignorance, comparable to one who wonders whether a fortnight is longer than 14 nights.

For discussion, see [Bach , ], [Kroon ], and [Lewis ]. So these descriptions seem to survive the semantic argument presented in the previous paragraph. But they face another objection, also facing simpler versions of descriptivism: Namely, the modal objection [Kripke ]. So these versions of descriptivism seem to escape the problems discussed in the previous paragraphs. The first two candidates, however, do not hold much promise for solving the problem of apparently true singular negative existentials.

We know what the property of being identical to Bill Gates is, but only because we know the result of plugging up one of the relata in the two-place relation is identical to with the individual Bill Gates. Insofar as we think that reality does not include any entity identical to Ronald McDonald, however, we are then left to wonder what the property of being identical to Ronald McDonald is.

Similar considerations apply to the predicating view. The last candidates, rigidified metalinguistic and causal descriptions, are the most promising for a robust form of descriptivism.

But some have claimed to discern important differences in the functioning of a name and its alleged semantically equivalent rigidified description, of any flavor. That is because it is only Bill Gates that satisfies that condition and he is not a member of the domain of the possible world in question.

So, differences in how a name and a rigidified description embed under modal operators can still be discerned. See [Salmon ] for further discussion. This objection assumes that the domain of quantification varies from world to world and that individuals that serve as the designation of ordinary names are genuine contingent existents, theses that can be denied.

The objection also assumes that the range of the description is the domain of the world with respect to which the description is being evaluated, the actuality operator rigidifying only the condition of the description, which may also be denied. The second objection to rigidified descriptivism concerns the differences some have claimed between how names and rigidified descriptions embed under propositional attitude verbs.

Intuitively, Jones would have still believed that Bill Gates is wealthy even if things had been ever so slightly different than they actually are—say, I bought a poppy bagel instead of a sesame bagel this morning. But it is implausible that Jones would have a belief about another possible world.

See [Soames ]. This section examined the thesis that seemingly singular existential and negative existential sentences are really general existentials, which are then treated as ascribing the property of being instantiated or not instantiated to some property. The success of that proposal, however, was seen to rest on the claim that ordinary proper names have descriptive equivalences, which many philosophers of language reject. In part on the basis of the above discussed problems, many philosophers reject descriptivism and accept that ordinary proper names are devices of direct reference, that there are true genuinely singular negative existentials, and so that there are nonexistent objects.

The Meinongian embraces these appearances and concludes that reality includes referents for empty names and those referents do not exist. The Meinongian trades logical and semantic simplicity for metaphysical abundance. Meinongianism is the thesis that there are objects that do not exist and so included in the most unrestricted domain of quantification and discourse are nonexistent entities.

One immediate challenge for the Meinongian is to offer individuating conditions for nonexistents. The most straightforward comprehension principle is the naive principle that, for any condition on objects, there is a unique object satisfying exactly that condition.

For our purposes, we can conceive of a condition as determining a set of properties; crudely, the properties expressed by the predicates composing the condition.

It follows that corresponding to any set of properties, there is exactly one object with exactly those properties. The naive comprehension principle faces several problems.

In what remains of this section, we shall present these problems and distinguish different versions of Meinongianism in terms of the devices employed to develop a restricted comprehension principle for objects that avoids those problems.

For a discussion of the debate between Russell and Meinong, see [Smith ]. The first is the problem of incomplete objects. Conditions need not be total; that is, we do not require that the set of properties a condition determines is such that, for every property, either it or its complement is a member of that set.

So, by the naive comprehension principle, the condition of being a singer defines an object with exactly that property—being a singer—and no other properties. A set with other properties as well is a distinct set of properties and so corresponds to a different condition and hence a different object.

Some find incomplete objects problematic in themselves, as they are counterexamples to bivalence: Our singer, for example, has neither the property of wearing a dress nor the property of not wearing a dress. But they also lead to more general threats of paradox. Our singer is an object with exactly one property: That of being a singer. This is its sole defining characteristic. So having a exactly one property is also a property of our singer and that property is distinct from the property of being a singer, which our singer also has.

So, the singer has two properties. One simple solution is to restrict the comprehension principle to total conditions. The resulting proposal, however, leads to a questionable application of Meinongian metaphysics to problems of fictional truth, as many want to claim that there is simply no fact of the matter as to whether or not Sherlock Holmes has a mole on his left shoulder, as that is left underdetermined by the Holmes stories and there are no deeper grounds for either predication.

Relatedly, this solution undermines a primary motivation for Meinongianism—namely, the idea that there is a subject of predication corresponding to any object of thought, as we certainly do not think only of complete objects. So, the simple solution is too simple and the Meinongian is better to find another, more complex solution to the problems of incompleteness.

The second is the problem of contradiction. A naive comprehension principle generates objects that violate the principle of noncontradiction. Consider the condition of being taller than everything. By the naive comprehension principle, this condition determines an object and so there is an object that has exactly the property of being taller than everything. But then it is taller than itself, which is a contradiction given the irreflexivity of the taller than relation.

The irreflexivity of the taller than relation is nonlogical. It is a logical truth that everything is self-identical; i. But consider the property of being self-distinct. By the naive comprehension principle this condition determines an object and that object is self-distinct. So our logically true sentence has a counterinstance.

So, consider the condition of being winged, being a horse, and existing. By the naive comprehension principle, there is an object with exactly these features.

But then this object exists, as existing is one of its characterizing features. Intuitively, however, there is no existent winged horse. An existent object cannot so easily be thought into being. Indeed, for every intuitively nonexistent object that motivates Meinongianism—Zeus, Pegasus, Santa Clause, and Ronald McDonald—there is, by the naive abstraction principle, an object just like it but with the additional property of existing. But then there is an existing Zeus, an existing Pegasus, etc..

This is overpopulation not of being but of existence as well. The naive comprehension principle, then, must be rejected and a restricted principle connecting sets of properties with objects be put in its place. The principle should generate enough objects to serve the Meinongian purpose of ensuring a corresponding object for every thought while avoiding the problems discussed above.

The first distinguishes two kinds of properties, what, following Terence Parsons [Parsons , ], we shall call nuclear and extra-nuclear properties. The comprehension principle is then restricted to conditions involving only nuclear predicates. Problematic properties, like existing, etc. Nuclear, not extra-nuclear, properties individuate objects. For every condition, there is a unique object that encodes just those properties.

An object may or may not exemplify the properties it encodes. Sherlock Holmes encodes the properties of being a detective and living at B Baker Street, etc.

The properties an object exemplify are not, on this view, a matter of mere stipulation. How do these distinctions solve the problems raised above for the naive comprehension principle? Parsons focuses on the problems of contradiction and of the existent winged horse.

Meinong claimed that there is a round square, but that, complained Russell, leads to violations of the principle of noncontradiction, as that entity is then both round and not round, in light of the fact that it is square, which entails that it is not round. He claims that there are counterexamples to the claim that all square objects are not round; after all, the round square is a square object that is round!

This solution, however, does not seem to solve the more general threat of contradiction, as discussed above. Indeed, Parsons himself recognizes the limited success of his response see [Parsons, , 42n8]. He allows that being non-squared is a nuclear property. But then his comprehension principle entails that there is an object corresponding to the condition of being a non-squared square, where that object instantiates the incompatible properties of being a square and being a non-square.

The threat of contradiction has not been silenced. The naive comprehension principle faced the problem of generating an existent winged horse. Recall our singer from above.

That object does not have exactly one property; instead, it has exactly one nuclear property. The distinction between nuclear and extra-nuclear properties remains unclear. He then tells us that the extra-nuclear are those that do not stand for properties of individuals [Parsons , 24]. And, of course, it is nuclear and not extra-nuclear properties by which objects are individuated. But it is not clear what status individual identity properties—properties like being identical to A , where A is an individual substance like, say, Parsons himself—have with respect to this distinction.

He sometimes claims that they are extra-nuclear properties [Parsons , 28]. In that case, however, Parsons is committed to the problematic thesis of the identity of indiscernibles and so the impossibility of two primitively distinct but qualitatively identical objects. From this standpoint the combining of the two is totally impossible and their "apparent" unity is, he alleged, partly hypocrisy, partly a lie, and partly subjective inconsistency. Some philosophical theories have maintained positions of dualism—acknowledging two parallel but independent worlds, the world of the spirit and the world of matter.

Some philosophers see the unity of objects and processes in their reality, that is, in the fact that they exist. This is indeed the general principle that unites everything in the world. But can the very fact of existence be regarded as a basis for the unity of the world?

This depends on how reality itself is interpreted, what is meant by reality: existence may be material or spiritual, imaginary. The theologians, for example, believe that God is real, that he exists but does not possess objective reality. He is unimaginable. Our feelings, thoughts, aspirations and aims are also real—they exist. Yet this is not objective but subjective existence. If existence is the basis of the unity of the world, then it is so only if we are talking about not subjective hut objective existence.

The actual unity of the world lies in its materiality. There can be nothing in the world that does not fit into the concept of matter and its multiform properties and relations.

The principle of the material unity of the world signifies not an empirical similarity or identity of concrete material systems, elements and laws, but the universality of matter as sub stance, as the carrier of multiform properties and relations. There is no mountain supposedly towering above the world that science can climb and from its peak see the world as a whole. It is against logic to simply transfer the principles of the known part of the world to the world as a whole.

The part of the world that we see is interconnected and in a state of continuous interaction with other parts of the world. The known part of the universe is, at least to some extent, related to the universe as a whole; since it is part of this whole, it is not something alien to it.

The unity of the world is expressed in the classification of the sciences, which records the connections between them that have objective content. The infinite universe, both in great things and in small, in the material and the spiritual spheres consistently obeys universal laws that connect every thing in the world and make it a single whole. The principle of materialist monism also applies to society.

Social being determines social consciousness. Materialist monism rejects views that single out consciousness and reason as a special substance contrasted to nature and society.

Consciousness is, in fact, cognition of reality and a part of that reality. There is no gulf between the laws that govern the motion of the world, and human consciousness. Consciousness belongs not to any transcendental world but to the material world. It is not a supernatural unicum but a natural attribute of highly organised matter. Matter is the cause and basis of all the world's diversity. It holds all the secrets of existence and all the ways of knowing them. The category of matter is reality rich in colours and forms.

Its cognition begins when we state that an object exists without yet knowing its attributes. Acknowledgement of matter as the substance of everything that exists is a crucial methodological principle.

To the extent that they have any objective content all fields of knowledge and culture rest entirely on the assumptions of the materialist world-view, although by no means all scientists and artists are aware of this indisputable fact.

Science is materialist to the core. Anything in it that is not materialist is not scientific either. All creative activity is based on the one axiomatic proposition concerning the reality of the object of study, the reality of the world.

No one can think creatively without recognising this proposition. Consistent application of the principle of materialism presupposes that one is able in any inquiry to separate the objective from the subjective, actual processes from their interpretations, the target of research from the means and forms of its cognition. The structure and indestructibility of matter. Matter has a heterogeneous, "granular", discontinuous structure. It consists of bits that vary in size and quality: elementary particles, atoms, molecules, macromolecules, stars and their systems, galaxies, and so on.

The "discontinuous" forms of matter are indissolubly connected with the "continuous" forms. The latter are different types of fields—gravitation, electromagnetic and nuclear. Some physicists want to retain the concept of ether but at a new level of comprehension, in the form of an all-pervasive vibrating cosmic medium possessing no mass. Physical fields connect the particles of matter, allow them to interact and thus exist.

So without the field of gravitation nothing would connect the stars in the galaxies or substance itself in stars. There would be no solar system, no sun, no planets. All bodies in general would cease to exist. Without electrical and magnetic fields nothing would connect atoms into molecules and electrons and nuclei into atoms.

This universal connection and interaction forms an attributive definition of substance and presupposes the mutual reflection and circulation of information in the universe. The concept of information has gradually expanded to embrace not only human communication but also the communication between living organisms and the various systems in each organism, the mechanisms of heredity, and finally, the physical objects, the entire surrounding world. The phenomenon of information may today be regarded as an all-embracing attribute of matter in motion, as the definition of all the interactions in the world.

The orderliness of matter has its levels, each of which is characterised by a special system of laws and by its own vehicle. This is the submicro-elementary level—the hypothetical form of existence of the matter of fields from which elementary particles are born micro-elementary level ; the next stage is the nucleus nuclear level , from nuclei and electrons there come atoms atomic level , and from them molecules molecular level , from molecules there are aggregates—gaseous, liquid, and solid bodies macroscopic level.

The bodies thus formed make up the stars and their satellites, the planets and their satellites, the stellar systems and the metagalaxies that embrace them, and so on to infinity cosmic level. Besides the substance condensed in the form of celestial bodies, there is also diffused matter in the universe.

This exists in the form of detached atoms and molecules and also gigantic clouds of gas and dust of varying density. All this taken together with irradiation constitutes the boundless universal ocean of rarefied substance in which the celestial bodies appear to float.

The cosmic bodies and systems have not existed since time began in their present form. They take shape as a result of condensation of nebulae that formerly occupied vast spaces. Consequently, cosmic bodies arise from a material environment as a result of the intrinsic laws of the motion of matter itself. Berkeley explicates that all physical objects are perceived via sensation. Material objects are merely ideas obtained through perceptual activity and their attributes are sensible rather than being physical properties.

Sensation is therefore impossible without the presence of ideas or else anything sensed would be unperceived or unthought. Christian Science view of idealism. Christian Scientists generally believe that God is a disembodied spirit who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. They set all being in His mind.

The true universe in its entirety, according to divine metaphysics, or Christian Science, is comprised of ideas that are completely spiritual and fashioned by divine thought, just as Berkeley espouses in his immaterialist views. Therefore, Christian Scientists specify that we as humans are in truth spirits produced by divinity, and in consequence are all incarnations of God. God envelops all that is real, and therefore, everything he is eternal, omni beneficent, etc. Everything else is just mortal error.

There is the Advaita Vendantin tradition in Hinduism and in it a form of Idealism. The concept that all experience emanates from the mind of Brahman God is incredibly important in Hindu epistemology, as it is predominant in most religious works, such as the Upanishads, ancient philosophical texts, and the Bhagavadgita.

In accordance with idealist thought, Hindus counter material existence outside the mind. The mind itself is even held to be unreal and is epitomized as the nemesis and interruption of the liberation of the soul as it amalgamates with Brahman moksha.

These processes allow one to negate the obstacles of the mind and the concept of the ego because the Self is really and truly a manifestation of Brahman that yearns for union with its divine source. Of course, once we comprehend the Self and unite it with Brahman, we may then come to comprehend his true being. The Self, however, can willingly choose to disjoin itself from Brahman.